Please Support Our Show: Join us on Substack

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With your paid subscription, you'll be invited to our next mythically inspired online writing retreat on June 25!

Subscribe to our newsletter Myth Is Medicine

OUR STORY

Think you know the story of Little Red Riding Hood?Think again. Katrice Horsley offers a wholly original take on this classic tale. It’s a coming of age narrative that invites us all to come into relationship with the wildest parts of ourselves.

OUR GUEST

Katrice grew up in the slums of Birmingham. Whilst her family were poor in the pocket, they were rich in the mouth and this laid the foundation for her love of words and stories. In her early years she struggled to be understood due to a speech problem and this resulted in her becoming a selective mute - in fact she did not speak in school until she was about 8 years old and her teachers judged her to be 'educationally sub-normal.' She went on to become the UK's National Storytelling Laureate and an internationally known narrative consultant and performer. Katrice believes that this was not, 'in spite' of her childhood but because of it. She is passionate about the power of story in enabling people to know that their voice deserves to be heard and their story deserves to be told.

Website - www.narrative4change.com

Substack The Wildling's Path https://katrice.substack.com/

• This story was crafted as an homage to the late British writer Angela Carter
• Katrice’s key themes: duty, desire, and death.
• Inhabiting the liminal space between the feral and the acceptable, she questions what is allowed by the dominant narrative and explores what within the individual nature that needs an outlet.
• The myth of separation, at cultural and personal level
• The desire to make menstruation and what it means into something beautiful
• Biomimicry: “a practice that learns from and mimics the strategies used by living organisms to solve challenges comparable to the ones we face as individuals and societies.” Katrice recommends this interview with Janine Benyus on biomimicry.
• On Katrice’s TBR list: To Have Or to Hold by Sophie Pavelle
• Katrice’s newest project “Mythcilium” explores how myths work as the mycorrhizal networks that connect humanity
• Oral storytelling is action driven while written storytelling is character driven.

Music at the start of the show is by Beth Sweeney and Billy Hardy: billyandbeth.com

WORK WITH MARISA

• 1:1 Writing Coaching: If you are working on a spiritual memoir or wellness professional or a creative entrepreneur who wants to use stories to build your business, book a free consultation with Marisa. Learn more at www.marisagoudy.com
• Learn about our global writing communities, the Authors’ Knot and the Writers’ Knot: www.marisagoudy.com/writing-groups

Follow the show on

Please Support Our Show: Join us on Substack

Love KnotWork Storytelling? Your financial contribution (via Substack) helps me pay the amazing team that puts this show together.

With your paid subscription, you'll be invited to our next mythically inspired online writing retreat on June 25!

Subscribe to our newsletter Myth Is Medicine

OUR STORY

As part of our Myth Workers and Culture Makers series, the artist Rónán Ó Raghallaigh takes us on a tour of the landscape and storyscape of his native County Kildare and neighboring County Wicklow. This area was home to Fionn mac Cumhaill (AKA Finn McCool) and his legendary band of warriors, the Fianna.

OUR GUEST

Rónán Ó Raghallaigh is an artist and researcher who received an MFA from the National College of Art and Design, Dublin in 2021. He has exhibited his work in solo and group exhibitions in Ireland and internationally.

Working through painting and performance, Rónán’s practice engages with pre-Christian Ireland as a means for contemporary postcolonial action. He visits sacred sites and researches their archaeology, history and folklore, providing a spring for new work. Paintings are made in the studio, while performances on site are filmed or live. He is re-learning the Irish language, and uses it during performances, for work-titles and in written texts interwoven with English and his vernacular dialect.

Rónán’s work is a constant act of remembering and cultivating alternative ways of being in response to colonialism, Christianity and industry. Storytelling and ritual become a practice for befriending our environment, considering identity and encouraging healing.

Find Rónán on Instagram: @ronan.o.raghallaigh and at ronanoraghallaigh.com

OUR CONVERSATION

• Rónán’s approaching to creative visionary art work includes accessing the consciousness through channeling and trance work. It’s a form of DIY spirituality and decolonization work.
• Logainmneacha: Irish placenames
• The power of well-visited sacred sites where others are also engaging with spiritual work, and also being with folks who are simply out enjoying a beautiful day
• The research and revival of imbas forosnai and other druidic practices to access inspiration
• The power of naming. In 1972 Brian O'Doherty staged a performance called Name Change, in which he changed his name to “Patrick Ireland” in protest of Bloody Sunday in Derry.
• The role of ritual, and Rónán’s performance art piece: Bealtaine Baptism
• Amergin’s Song with its proclamations of “I am” as a form of pre-Christian prayer.
• A recent performance art piece An Tobar agus an Chloch

Music at the start of the show is by Beth Sweeney and Billy Hardy: billyandbeth.com

WORK WITH MARISA

• 1:1 Writing Coaching: If you are working on a spiritual memoir or wellness professional or a creative entrepreneur who wants to use stories to build your business, book a free consultation with Marisa. Learn more at

Please Support Our Show: Join us on Substack

Love KnotWork Storytelling? Your financial contribution (via Substack) helps me pay the amazing team that puts this show together.

With your paid subscription, you'll be invited to our next mythically inspired online writing retreat on June 25!

Subscribe to our newsletter Myth Is Medicine

Our Story

What if the first day of summer arrived with the icy grip of the Ice Age? Join one man on his quest for truth as he seeks answers from Ireland’s animist wisdom keepers—encountering Eagle, Otter, and Salmon along the way.

Inspired by an account shared in Gearóid Ó Crualaoich’s The Book of the Cailleach: Stories of the Wise-Woman Healer, this story reimagines the tale of The Cailleach Bhéarrathach and the cold of May-Day Monday.

Our Guest

As KnotWork’s 2025 resident storyteller, Erica O’Reilly is devoted to facilitating experiences where souls feel seen, held, and heard. She believes deeply in wisdom of the human body and spirit; as well as the powerful medicine of storytelling.

Over the years, in coming home to the bones of her Irish ancestry, Erica has discovered that her dán [soul work] is interlaced within the sacred embrace of the Irish Mná Feasa (the Wise Women), the Mná Leighas (the Medicine Women), the Mná Chaointe (the Keening Women), and the Áes Dána (People of the Arts).

As the Creative Visionary of Into the Circle Theatre, Erica is dedicated to reverently honoring the tradition of the seanchaí in a modern context. Through the weaving of Irish culture, history, folklore, and mythology, Into the Circle Theatre shares the hallowed tales of women remembering and reclaiming the wisdom of their bodies and the magic of their spirits.

As an Irish-Canadian, Erica remains profoundly grateful to the traditional spirits and keepers of the land—past, present, and future—of the unceded territory of the Algonquin Anishinabeg Nation, where she was born and currently resides. Míle buíochas for the opportunity to live, create, share stories, and walk alongside you.

Find Erica: Weavings of the Wise & Embodied [Substack], Instagram or her website.

Subscribe now and mark your calendars for the Sunday after Bealtaine.

Music at the start of the show is by Beth Sweeney and Billy Hardy: billyandbeth.com

WORK WITH MARISA

• 1:1 Writing Coaching: If you are working on a spiritual memoir or wellness professional or a creative entrepreneur who wants to use stories to build your business, book a free consultation with Marisa. Learn more at www.marisagoudy.com
• Learn about our global writing communities, the Authors’ Knot and the Writers’ Knot: www.marisagoudy.com/writing-groups

Follow the show on Substack,